High in the Big Horn Mountains at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, lies the Medicine Wheel (above) — a place of worship, a National Historic Site, and an archeological mystery.

It is believed that between A.D. 1200 and A.D. 1700, hundreds of limestone rocks were placed in the shape of a wheel roughly 80 feet in diameter. Twenty eight spokes radiate from a central cairn to six smaller cairns around the rim.

Who built this and why?

No one knows for sure, but Native American beliefs and archeological evidence point to its use as a spiritual site. Many people still come to the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain for inspiration, solitude, meditation and vision questing.

The Medicine Wheel was given protection and nominated to the National Register by local Big Horn Basin communities. The site is protected by federal antiquity laws under administration of the Forest Service.

– site placard

The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the dust and blood of our ancestors.

The song that I will sing is an old song, so old that none knows who made it. It has been handed down through generations and was taught to me when I was but a little lad. It is now my own song. It belongs to me. This is a holy song (medicine-song), and great is its power. The song tells how, as I sing, I go through the air to a holy place where Yusun (The Supreme Being) will give me power to do wonderful things. I am surrounded by little clouds, and as I go through the air I change, becoming spirit only.

Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain.

Have you ever heard a word and wondered its true meaning? Of course each word will mean something different to each person. With that in mind I ask myself if any true communication exit between us. Words are symbols of symbols twice removed from reality.

I have an idea in my mind of a living thing with roots in the ground, a trunk that shoots skyward, branches that reach and spread, and broad green leaves that catch the sun – a tree. I project that idea onto the world where I see a symbol of the thing in my mind. I see and feel a large “living” organism with roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. I see and feel a tree. But that tree I see and feel is just a symbol for the idea of a tree I have in my mind.

There is a word over many years that I have come to know. At times I thought I knew the meaning only to be surprised and then to extract or add in more understanding. At the beginning of my understanding, I thought the meaning to be boring, non-eventful and lacking. The word is peace. When one is young he wants nothing to do with peace, adventure and chaos seem exciting. Consistency and knowing may seem trite. Once it’s true meaning is experienced and born in ones heart and mind – nothing compares. Now when I flirt with adventure and chaos it is only as a reminder of how fantastic the knowing of Peace. It is like a going away and then finding my way home. I suppose that will fade in time and I will just stay home metaphorically. I’ll be the one you see that is in the midst of adventure but as calm as a placid lake. Look for it in mine eyes.

Sometimes to say what something is – it’s easier to say what it is not, leaving what is is. What Peace is not: it is not wishing for things to be better. It is not goal setting, it is not ambition, striving, lust, envy wishing well. It’s just pure being with nothing attached. It’s loving pointed nowhere. That is, it’s love not directed at a object, person place or thing. It is nothing. Back to Zero everything, I call it. It seems that the further one goes from zero the more complicated it gets. Peace is not complicated, It’s not complex, intricate, involved, convoluted, tangled, impenetrable or tricky. One could say it is the human emotion for the Divine experience. If it was math it would be Zero. If it were a color it would be white. If it were a song it would be between the notes. If it were a painting it would be the canvas. The least complicated thing in the Multiverse.

They say it a Peace that passeth All understanding….

I want peace. Many have said these words but few have meant them. To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place or time. Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation fully recognized.

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets. Of course when she had left her house she’d had slippers on, but what good had they been? They were very big slippers, way too big for her, for they belonged to her mother. The little girl had lost them running across the road, where two carriages had rattled by terribly fast. One slipper she’d not been able to find again, and a boy had run off with the other, saying he could use it very well as a cradle some day when he had children of his own. And so the little girl walked on her naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried several packages of matches, and she held a box of them in her hand. No one had bought any from her all day long, and no one had given her a cent.

Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along, a picture of misery, poor little girl! The snowflakes fell on her long fair hair, which hung in pretty curls over her neck. In all the windows lights were shining, and there was a wonderful smell of roast goose, for it was New Year’s eve. Yes, she thought of that!

In a corner formed by two houses, one of which projected farther out into the street than the other, she sat down and drew up her little feet under her. She was getting colder and colder, but did not dare to go home, for she had sold no matches, nor earned a single cent, and her father would surely beat her. Besides, it was cold at home, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled even though the biggest cracks had been stuffed with straw and rags.

Her hands were almost dead with cold. Oh, how much one little match might warm her! If she could only take one from the box and rub it against the wall and warm her hands. She drew one out. R-r-ratch! How it sputtered and burned! It made a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, as she held her hands over it; but it gave a strange light! It really seemed to the little girl as if she were sitting before a great iron stove with shining brass knobs and a brass cover. How wonderfully the fire burned! How comfortable it was! The youngster stretched out her feet to warm them too; then the little flame went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the burnt match in her hand.

She struck another match against the wall. It burned brightly, and when the light fell upon the wall it became transparent like a thin veil, and she could see through it into a room. On the table a snow-white cloth was spread, and on it stood a shining dinner service. The roast goose steamed gloriously, stuffed with apples and prunes. And what was still better, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled along the floor with a knife and fork in its breast, right over to the little girl. Then the match went out, and she could see only the thick, cold wall. She lighted another match. Then she was sitting under the most beautiful Christmas tree. It was much larger and much more beautiful than the one she had seen last Christmas through the glass door at the rich merchant’s home. Thousands of candles burned on the green branches, and colored pictures like those in the printshops looked down at her. The little girl reached both her hands toward them. Then the match went out. But the Christmas lights mounted higher. She saw them now as bright stars in the sky. One of them fell down, forming a long line of fire.

“Now someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star fell down a soul went up to God.

She rubbed another match against the wall. It became bright again, and in the glow the old grandmother stood clear and shining, kind and lovely.

“Grandmother!” cried the child. “Oh, take me with you! I know you will disappear when the match is burned out. You will vanish like the warm stove, the wonderful roast goose and the beautiful big Christmas tree!”

And she quickly struck the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother with her. And the matches burned with such a glow that it became brighter than daylight. Grandmother had never been so grand and beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and both of them flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor fear-they were with God.

But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the little girl with red cheeks and smiling mouth, frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. The New Year’s sun rose upon a little pathetic figure. The child sat there, stiff and cold, holding the matches, of which one bundle was almost burned.

“She wanted to warm herself,” the people said. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, and how happily she had gone with her old grandmother into the bright New Year.

Seek and yea shall find and if your hell bent for the promised land – you’ll find it. Regardless of what road you find yourself on. I often fly in my dreams. When I wake up I can only fly in machines that I have no idea how they work. Hot air balloons- helium is lighter than air. Jet airplanes, how’s that work. If the world is spinning at 24,000 thousand miles an hour, why don’t I just fling off?

We recently celebrated 100th anniversary of man learning to fly. Now that’s the sort of miracle that we tend to take for granted nowadays. For hundreds of years man was taking that same kind of leap of faith and falling on his ass. They were tying themselves to kites and homemade wings and hurling themselves off barns, hillsides and crashing off of cliffs. So, how did the wright brothers do it? When everyone else was nose diving for centuries, they saw the unique value in all of the inventors around them. Did you know that part of their wing design was the same design as a railway bridge. Isn’t that a genius leap, using a bridge to fly? Instead of using a leap of faith we can learn to fly. Success leaves breadcrumbs.

In today’s wireless world, we take for granted our ability to connect in seconds from virtually anywhere, with apps that make work more productive and play more fun. But that constant connectivity is made possible by technology that could’ve been lost to history. In the 1980s, as the telecom industry focused its resources on one technology, Qualcomm wondered, “What if there’s something better?” In a daring departure, they began experimenting with CDMA, a concept that would change the face of wireless communication.

Like my Moma use to say – you should scratch it if it itches- even if it’s in your britches.

CDMA, or code division multiple access, can actually be traced back to the 1940s. Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil, inspired by the way musical notes are arranged, theorized that multiple frequencies could be used to send a single radio transmission. “Frequency hopping” could prevent a radio signal from being jammed. They patented the idea and gave it to the U.S. government for use in World War II, but it was largely ignored and the patent eventually expired.

Four decades later, Qualcomm saw potential for CDMA in the emerging cellular field. Founder Irwin Jacobs claimed it could increase capacity forty-fold, working so efficiently that wireless could become affordable for all. But the industry had invested millions in TDMA (time division multiple access) and was reluctant to change course. Some argued that CDMA was too complex and expensive to deploy. Others said it just wouldn’t work.

We cannot solve the significant problems we face today with the same thinking that created them. -Bert Einstein

Most of today’s cell phones transmit at 250 milliwatts (1/4 of a watt). At this very low power it would take an eon to damage a human being. On another note however, the way celfones are being misused are more dangerous than the debated effects of the radiation it emits. A lot of road accidents specially involving teens are related to cell phone misuse.

Other detriments of cell phones. For one, the light that the screen emitts can keep you up. Your body mistakes it for sunlight, so you don’t fall asleep. For two, when you put the phone to your ear, the signal that is traveling between two phones goes through your ear, and might cause brain tumors. For three, when you are driving and using your phone for any reason, you basically put your life on the line, not to mention the life of a passenger and everybody around you, including other drivers. Also, texting can become addicting. Your body gets so used to texting that you start going through withdrawals. Withdrawals will cause difficulty concentrating, irritability, anxiety, anger, depressed mood, sleep disturbance, and craving. Cell phones can reduce your time with family, friends, and you hobbies, causing you to feel lonely and depressed. Texting will decrease your grammar and writing skills, basically making you look stupid. There you have it. Cell phones in a nutshell.

Even with all of the advancement in technology we still are unable to save us from ourselves, On this little blue marble on the outskirts of a small galaxy in an eternity of Galaxies the cancer we call society and human advancement continues to pollute the body our conciseness calls home.

The use if a different kind of thought form wavelength. In the transmutation in modern man, we continue forward to what end. Obviously the advancement of technology makes life seem easier, illness curable but with each new cure a new dis-ease shows itself. We are unable to change the face of life with whatever we call intelligence. Wars still rage, crime and prison building is on the rise and that’s the Ying & Yang of the cosmos. It will always be like that – an equal amount of good and evil or advancement and the poison excrement of that so called advancement. I just thought I would leave you with that negative spin on the whole trip. We are all in this together. If the point of evolution is to evolve then let’s get to it. But not in technological advancement but in the advancement to be, love and live together.